Two deaths have already been linked to Mideast violence right here in America. Despite the new hostage releases, Paul Kessler and Wadea Al-Fayoume will never be coming home. The Jewish senior citizen and the 6-year-old Muslim boy weren't killed in the carnage stemming from the Oct. 7 Hamas massacre or the Israeli response, but in California and Illinois.
Their deaths are senseless collateral damage from a war thousands of miles away whose reverberations are tearing a fragile America even further apart. And while we celebrate the fragile ray of hope the temporary ceasefire and hostage and prisoner exchange brought, it's time to assess what the Israel-Hamas war has done here in the United States.
A conflict overseas that hasn't greatly involved U.S. troops has still permeated American life from city streets to suburban shopping malls, transportation hubs to campuses, along with our politics and social media. Both the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security have issued ominous warnings about homegrown terrorist attacks stemming from the conflict in Gaza.
Jews have been greatly threatened. A Pro-Palestinian group published a map of New York areas they claimed are somehow related to Israel's action in Gaza with a chilling title, "Globalize the Intifada: Zone of Operations." These include not only Jewish-owned businesses and organizations, but such crowded areas as Grand Central Station and the Museum of Modern Art.
The Mideast has even thrown a wrench into the 2024 presidential race, with some political handicappers speculating President Joe Biden's strong initial pro-Israel stance could endanger his prospects among young voters, as well as Muslims.
Anti-Israel protesters attempted to physically hem in members of Congress in an effort that no doubt brought echoes of Jan. 6 to the minds of Capitol Police. A California Democratic convention came under siege by demonstrators. The pro-Palestinian protests have shut down critical modes of transportation from the Bay Bridge in San Francisco to Union Station in Washington, DC.
Even cherished traditions like the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade couldn't escape anti-Israel protesters who glued their hands to the street along the parade route. Even more paralyzing protests are planned during the busy holiday season to hold everyday American life hostage to pro-Palestinian policy concerns over deaths in Gaza.
Peaceful protest is a cherished American value, but obstruction and violence threaten all of us.
Jews are accosted or threatened at colleges, synagogues and on social media. Many are afraid to display any identifying signs of their religion. When students found out a New York Jewish high school teacher displayed sympathies with Israel after the Hamas massacre, she was evacuated from her classroom after being targeted while students stormed school halls. New York City Mayor Eric Adams called it "a vile show of antisemitism...motivated by ignorance-fueled hatred."
In 2023 America, Jews now have a visceral understanding of life in Germany as the Nazis came to power in the early 1930s. Even more frightening is how profound misunderstanding of the Middle East is roiling an already starkly divided America.
Our once-proud sense of American values has been so warped that posters of hostages
held by Hamas, including U.S. citizens, are angrily or gleefully ripped down by those citing suffering Palestinian civilians. College students who declare genocide is happening in Israel's response to the terrorist attack, proudly chant a slogan proclaiming a free Palestine "from the river to the sea." That implies a genocide of Jews living in Israel now. Perhaps logic is no longer a college course.
Deep misconceptions are cited as the cause for the attacks. None of the babies, children and Holocaust survivors killed or kidnapped, women raped, or anyone beheaded by Hamas was on occupied land. They were within Israel's longtime borders.
I've tried to motivate American interest in both sides of the incredibly complex Middle East situation since well before it was reduced to misleading memes and hashtags. Yet until Oct. 7, if it didn't happen in the U.S. or involve our troops, it didn't have a lasting effect.
But now, fueled by what charitably might be the right reasons, but the wrong facts, it has embedded itself, at least temporarily, in America.
The concern that Biden's swift and certain siding with Israel in the wake of Oct. 7 is overblown. Despite all the political navel gazing, as I've learned sitting in the newsroom waiting for an assignment on election nights, Americans rarely vote on foreign policy.
Despite the collapse of the recent ceasefire into acrimony and death, the United States is different, with different traditions of civil disagreement. Regardless of the latest events in the Levant, we can and should call a ceasefire here.
Perhaps we can once again show the world how Americans can peacefully handle policy differences.
Lee Michael Katz is an award-winning journalist, analyst and author. Currently a freelance writer, Katz is the former senior diplomatic correspondent of USA Today and international editor of UPI News Service.
The views expressed in this article are the writer's own.
Uncommon Knowledge
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
About the writer
To read how Newsweek uses AI as a newsroom tool, Click here.
